The very first night we had a lot of wind, up to 18 kn, however the wind died pretty quickly and early morning day 2 we hade motor. Choosing the Southerly path we were pretty alone with Heidi by our side making our crossing more social. It is lovely, especially at the pitch dark night to be able to see lanterns by the horizon.

This DAY 2 we got as close as possible in order to make more changes : carrot cake for ginger.

DAY 4 we continued with our issues: the AIS stopped working. The AIS (positioning information of other boats, ARC boats as well as passing cargo ships) information was gone due to a broken cable. So once again the VHF radio being our life line: “Heidi, Heidi… Take Off calling”. “Take Off, this is Heidi”…”Do you happen to have a spare AIS cable?”…. 240 NM away from Galapagos Heidi answered: “Yes we do”. So once again goods were changed between Heidi and Take Off with a bag on a fish hook!

Happy Crew: the spare cable.

Lovely pictures of Jean-Daniel at the bow of his yacht Heidi.

Showing the kid within him ;-)

For 8 days we had Heidi’s company sometimes at the back, sometimes at the side, sometimes as the front… every day we talked on the VHF and Alex and Inez learned quickly how to use the VHF in order to talk to Raphaêl. Rapahël needed to some other company so the VHF was frequently used. Once we managed to come as South as we needed to pick up the Trade Winds the real sailing started and a few days later we hade unfortunately lost sight and VHF contact with Heidi. Luckiy we could mail to each other.